..续本文上一页ain insight into the truth for themselves are not worthy of praise.
I emphasise the teaching that the Dhamma is opanayiko --to be brought inside oneself-- so that the mind knows, understands and experiences the results of the training within itself. If people say you are meditating correctly, don”t be too quick to believe them, and similarly, if they say you”re doing it wrong, don”t just accept what they say until you”ve really practised and found out for yourself. Even if they instruct you in the correct way that leads to enlightenment, this is still just other people”s words; you have to take their teachings and apply them until you experience results for yourself right here in the present. That means you must become your own witness, able to confirm the results from within your own mind. It”s like the example of the sour fruit. Imagine I told you that a certain fruit tasted sour and invited you to try some of it. You would have to take a bite from it to taste the sourness. Some people would willingly take my word for it if I told them the fruit was sour, but if they simply believed that it was sour without ever tasting it, that belief would be useless (mogha), it wouldn”t have any real value or meaning. If you described the fruit as sour, it would be merely going by my perception of it. Only that. The Buddha didn”t praise such belief. But then you shouldn”t just dismiss it either: investigate it. You must try tasting the fruit for yourself, and by actually experiencing the sour taste, you become your own internal witness. Somebody says it”s sour, so you take it away and, by eating it, find out that it really is sour. It”s like you”re making double sure - relying on your own experience as well as what other people say. This way you can really have confidence in the authenticity of its sour taste; you have a witness who attests to the truth.
Venerable Ajahn Mun referred to this internal witness that exists within the mind as sitibhuto. The authenticity of any knowledge acquired merely from what other people say remains unsubstantiated, it is only a truth proven to someone else -- you only have someone else”s word to go on that the fruit is sour. You could say that it”s a half-truth, or fifty percent. But if you actually taste the fruit and find it sour, that is the one hundred percent, whole truth: you have evidence from what other people say and also from your own direct experience. This is a fully one hundred percent substantiated truth. This is sitibhuto: the internal witness has risen within you.
The way to train is thus opanayiko. You direct your attention inwards, until your insight and understanding become paccattam (knowing and experiencing the truth for yourself). Understanding gained from listening to and watching other people is superficial in comparison with the deep understanding that is paccattam; it remains on the outside of paccattam. Such knowledge doesn”t arise from self-examination; it”s not your own insight -- it”s other people”s insight. That doesn”t mean you should be heedless and dismissive of any teachings you receive from other sources, they should also become the subject for study and investigation. When you first come across and begin to understand some aspect of the teaching from the books, it”s fine to believe it on one level, but at the same time to recognize that you haven”t yet trained the mind and developed that knowledge through your own experience. For that reason you still haven”t experienced the full benefit of the teaching. It”s as if the true value of your understanding is still only half complete. So then you must cultivate the mind and let your insight mature, until you completely penetrate the truth. In that way your knowledge becomes fully complete. It is then you go beyond doubt. If…
《Suffering On The Road》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…